(Nikon D700, 28-80mm at 28mm, ISO 2500, 7 exposures @ f/5.6)

My wife and I have been visiting the Good Hart area in northern lower Michigan on and off for many years. We used to rent a house on Lake Michigan in an area known as Middle Village. Almost across the road from the house we rented was an old, decaying structure. It wasn’t until this year that I actually bothered to take some pictures of it. Given the state of decay I wouldn’t be surprised if the building is gone in the next few years. Middle Village itself was originally an Ottawa Indian village. A Jesuit Mission was established at Middle Village in 1741 and was rebuilt by Native Americans in 1823. A church, built in 1889 and a cemetary remain. The church is still used during the summer. Some additional information about the area can be found here.

The image above is a 7 shot HDR that I took from a front window. I didn’t have a tripod so I used to window frame for support. After converting the 7 images to an HDR using Photomatix I tried some different processing ideas in Photoshop. I wasn’t entirely thrilled with the color version and I thought that black & white would suit the topic better so that’s what I went with.

I took several other shots of this building, including a couple from the outside. It’s interesting comparing the condition of the building in my shot below, with this shot taken by RPM-Photo, one of my Flickr contacts. His shot was taken in 2003 and the roof and sides of the building are in much better shape. It appears that someone has been stripping some of the siding off of the building. The image below is a double processed single image HDR. I created two virtual copies in Lightroom and processed one for the sky and one for the shadows. I then took both images into Photomatix 4 (beta). After processing I masked out the sky and used the one from my sky processed image because I thought the sky looked better.

If anyone has any additional information on the history of this building, or general feedback on the image itself, please feel free to add them to the comments below.

Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.

(Nikon D700, 16-35mm at 20mm, ISO 3200, Exposure 7 exposure HDR @f/8.0)

This is an interior shot taken at the Northern Michigan Asylum in Traverse City, Michigan. The asylum consisted of several buildings, some of which are currently under renovation for commercial use. Many of the buildings are still in rough shape, including this one. I was able to get a shot of the interior by sticking my camera through a missing window pane. While taking the picture I could feel a breeze on my face as wind blew through the building. There was a very distinctive old and musty smell to the air.

The interior space was fairly dark but I thought that the interior might make an interesting HDR image. I didn’t have a tripod, but the window was small enough that I was able to use it as a make-shift tripod. I cranked up the ISO so that even my long exposures would be reasonably short. The image above was produced from 7 exposures with some additional processing though Topaz Adjust. The interesting thing was what ‘developed’ from the HDR. To my eye there are some ‘ghostly’ components to the image. There is a bright light which appears to be moving into the door in the bottom right. In the center there appears to be a shadow of person being cast on the wall. I don’t really think really are any ‘spirits’ floating around the asylum, but who knows?

By way of comparison, here is one of the images used to create the HDR version shown above.

Comments?

Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.

(Olympus E-3, 7-14mm at 7mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, multiple exposures @ f/8.0)

The shot above shows the new Mott Children’s Hospital which is currently under construction on the medical campus at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. This is a 4 shot HDR (was supposed to be 5) with some additional post processing (mostly cleaning up some flare spots in the sky).

The reason this was a 4 shot instead of a 5 shot HDR is because I was not allowed to take the 5th shot. As I was taking the picture, a public safety officer approached me and informed me that I was not allowed to take pictures of ‘infrastructure’. He was very polite and non-confrontational, didn’t threaten to take my camera, he just told me to stop taking pictures. He also said that if I wanted to take more pictures, I would need to get permission from the University. I’ve since contacted the Public Safety office at U of M to get a clarification on their photography policy and what does, and does not, constitute ‘infrastructure’.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Image and text Copyright © 2009 James W. Howe – All rights reserved

Please visit my Image Kind Galleries.

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(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 29mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, 5 exposures @ f/9.0)

The Fleetwood Diner is an Ann Arbor institution. The diner opened in 1949 as the Dag-Wood and was built from a kit manufactured by the Dag-Wood Diner Company in Toledo, Ohio. The diner was renamed the Fleetwood Diner in 1971. The exterior was originally enamel, but was given a stainless steel exterior in 1998. For more history and interesting tidbits on the diner, visit The Fleetwood Diner page, hosted by a local Ann Arbor resident.

The image itself was produced from 5 different exposures ranging from -2 to +2. The images were processed using Photomatix, with additional processing in Photoshop CS4. Similar to my Acme Mercantile shot, I again used the Topaz Simplify filter from Topaz Labs to ‘simplify’ some of the features in the background.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Update: An alternative version of this image can be found on my Flickr account. Check it out and let me know which one you like better (if you have a preference)

Image and text Copyright © 2009 James W. Howe – All rights reserved

This image is available for purchase in my Color gallery at ImageKind. Contact me directly for other purchase options.

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 14mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 5 stop HDR @ f/9.0)

On Liberty Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan is a terrific little store with a variety of interesting merchandise. The store is Acme Mercantile. I took this shot of the storefront on a morning walk through town. For some reason I was in the mood to take storefronts that day. Most of the images I shot on my walk were taken with the potential to make an HDR image. I set my camera to shoot 5 bracketed exposures, 1 stop apart. I was doing this hand held and I set my camera to fast shooting and clicked off 5 quick shots at various exposures in an attempt to minimize movement. Of course, one problem was that it was windy that day, so any thing which could be affected by the wind (like leaves on a tree) created motion that I didn’t want.

I started processing by having Photomatix convert the 5 exposures into one HDR. From there I went in to Photoshop. I corrected some perspective distortion and then went on to some additional processing. I’ve been experimenting with selectively using a filter from Topaz Labs called Simplify and I used it on this image to minimize the problem with the moving leaves. I created a new layer and went into the Simplify filter and selected the ‘Buzz Sim’ preset. This creates an image which looks like it was painted. After saving the layer, I created a layer mask on that layer and selectively reduced the filter’s effect. I wanted to keep most of the store front sharp, but keep the stuff in the distance ‘simplified’. I also liked the way the filter made the reflection in the front window look, so I kept the filter effect there as well.

I always feel guilty when I use some sort of ‘creative’ filter on my images. I feel like I’m cheating somehow. However, at the same time I like the end result. I’m curious what others think, not only about this particular image, but about using ‘creative’ filters in the post processing stage.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Image and text Copyright © 2009 James W. Howe – All rights reserved

This image is available for purchase in my Color gallery on ImageKind. Please check it out!

(Olympus E-3, 7-14mm at 7mm (2x crop factor), ISO 500, 5 exposure HDR @ f/9.0)

As I was heading in to work one morning, I noticed that there were some interesting clouds in the sky and thought I might be able to capture some images with nicely lit clouds. I work near the University of Michigan, so I drove over to the campus area to see what possibilities might await me. I parked near the UM Law School and I liked the way the morning light was shining on the Law School Reading Room. Since I had my tripod with me, I decided to shoot several exposures to create an HDR image. I’ve always liked what HDR can do with brick and stone so this building was a natural.

When I processed the shots, I initially did a fairly strong HDR to get some details in the building. However, I didn’t like what it did to the sky, made it to comical. I did a second processing of the exposures using some different settings to get a better sky. I then merged the two in Photoshop. The finished image is still a bit stronger than I typically like in an HDR. The grass in particular looks a bit alien. I’ll probably rework this one to come up with something that is more realistic, but has a bit of HDR bite.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Image and text Copyright © 2009 James W. Howe – All rights reserved

Check out other images at my website at www.jameshowephotography.com

(Olympus E-3, 7-14mm at 7mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure various @ f/11)

This is a shot of the State Street area in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This part of town is right on the edge of Central Campus at the University of Michigan. This image was created from an HDR image that I had created from 3 different exposures. I didn’t have my tripod handy so I took the shots hand-held. I processed the images using Photomatix Pro, but the end result wasn’t as sharp as I would have liked, most likely due to the lack of a tripod. Even though the image wasn’t sharp, I liked the overall composition and color quality.

I shot this with my Zuiko 7-14mm lens, which has a 35mm effective focal length of 14 – 28mm. I shot this at 7mm and from a point low to the ground. I captured a large expanse of brick before getting to the main street scape. I liked the look of the brick, particularly after the HDR processing, but I felt that the image was more suited to a panoramic framing, hence the long crop. Since I liked the basic look of the image, I decided to play around in Photoshop CS4 to see what creative things I might be able to do to the image. In the past I’ve used the Cutout filter to create a posterized/wood block looking image. I tried that with this image and I was pleased with the results. I’ll probably go back to this spot again, probably with a tripod, and see if I can get a better HDR image, but for the meantime, I’ll settle for this image.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Image and text Copyright © 2009 James W. Howe – All rights reserved

Please visit my online gallery at ImageKind for University of Michigan images (and more!)

www.jameshowephotography.com

on Twitter @JamesHowePhoto

(Olympus E-500, 14-45mm at 14mm (2x crop), ISO 100, exposure varies @ f/8.0)

This is an older image (about 2 years old) that I took of Barton Dam near Ann Arbor, Michigan. Even though I had lived in Ann Arbor for years, I had never been out to see the dam. It’s right outside of town so it’s not like it would take a major effort to go see it, I just never bother. One day I decided to take my new camera and go check out the dam. I was hooked. I’ve made several trips back to take pictures at different times of the year. This particular image is one of the first ones that I took. I was wanted to experiment with HDR so I packed up my tripod and headed out. I took 9 shots of varying exposures and blended them together using the Photomatix software. There was obviously a large amount of movement in the churning water, so I used Photoshop to blend in a single image, leaving the HDR for the dam itself and the sky. This was my first HDR and it is still one of my favorites. I really like the way the water flowing over the dam came out, as well as the motion of the clouds in the sky. If you look carefully, you will see a person walking across the top of the dam. He’s in about three different places.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Image and text Copyright © 2007-2008 James W. Howe – All rights reserved